”Are you sure?”
Of course I was sure. I had been saving up, planning, engaging in subterfuge of various sorts, for months. Ever since I had seen the advertisement and verified it online, my mind had been completely occupied with this and little else.
At 24, I had completed my college education to my family’s satisfaction, and I had even turned an internship into a proper job. But two years in, my life as an analyst was proving a massive disappointment. Government contracting was incredibly dull and soul crushing, and financial data was the worst. The systems were so complex that nobody could really follow it, and during a systems upgrade some part of the chain of allocations and obligations had come undone. I had spent five months untangling the mess from a bunch of previous efforts, and even gotten a service award for my troubles. Money seemed to be flowing properly again.
What nobody but me knew was that I had found a tiny exploit in four different systems, something that must have been baked in from the very start, and never completed. What I had assumed was scrambled artifacts of a random update from the late 90s, by pure chance, seemed familiar — a bunch of commented code and notes that rung a bell. If I hadn’t coincidentally been clearing my head with a brain teaser website, I would never have caught it. But sure enough, decode the block and run it through a couple code lookups, and some bored genius had sketched out a brilliant way to steadily siphon money from the government, in such tiny amounts and from numerous sources, that it was virtually undetectable. All that was needed was the final step, which he seemed to never have finished. Maybe due to limitations of that era?
But with that clue, I was able to write a program to do what the other guy had started, and within four months I had a secret bank account set up in a dead man’s name, and two hundred and ten thousand bucks stashed away there. I dared not touch it directly.
And then I got scared, dismantled it all, and destroyed the evidence. I kept the account an built a routine to invest it — half in randomly chosen stuff, half in what I assumed would be stable stuff, and forgot about it for the most part. Once I’d had the automated stuff set up, I lost interest. Back to my soul crushing boredom.
Two things happened in short order one bright may morning.
First, I decided to check on the account, after a coworker mentioned he had made a tidy sum on some stock or other.
I had six million dollars in that account.
Second, I accidentally stumbled across a “news of the weird” article in my feed, and decided to distract myself from my panic by seeing how far from reality it was.
The claims of full body makeover were pretty extreme, and I was pretty dubious as I plowed through all the research... but sure enough, the two doctors cited had legit publications until about four years ago, and then disappeared from academics. The photos matched and other minor details corresponded to what I was able to dig up online.
Somehow, this team had left university life and a failed biotech company, and started something new — in a country so tiny and remote, i had to double check with my travel agent buddy to make sure it was real.
And then I started seeing and reading about people who’d been and gone through the treatment. While none of them showed signs of anything extreme, they did show remarkably changes, comparable to a dedicated fitness program and the best plastic surgery in the world.
For another month, I obsessed possibilities, until I finally made my decision. Then another two months laying groundwork for a lengthy absence, while slowly converting funds and setting things up overseas for a new identity.
Finally, through several layers of anonymity, I contacted the clinic and asked the questions that had been burning in my mind for weeks and weeks.
The answers gave me hope, and what’s more, they quickly passed me along to the head doctors, who seemed excited by the challenge. We reached an agreed fee and made the arrangements.
As far as work knew, I was taking a vacation to Hong Kong and Thailand, but I was only passing through Hong Kong, where I planned to disappear and travel the rest of the way under my assumed identity.
The weeks leading up to it were awful and tense, purely because of anticipation and second thoughts. But then I found myself on a plane with minimal luggage, most of which I would ditch long before I reached he clinic. It all went remarkably well, and suddenly there I was, alone in tiny island port, with sixty thousand dollars in cash and a backpack with my entire life in it.
“Mister Dennis?”
“Yes,”I replied.
“Please follow me.
Of course I was sure. I had been saving up, planning, engaging in subterfuge of various sorts, for months. Ever since I had seen the advertisement and verified it online, my mind had been completely occupied with this and little else.
At 24, I had completed my college education to my family’s satisfaction, and I had even turned an internship into a proper job. But two years in, my life as an analyst was proving a massive disappointment. Government contracting was incredibly dull and soul crushing, and financial data was the worst. The systems were so complex that nobody could really follow it, and during a systems upgrade some part of the chain of allocations and obligations had come undone. I had spent five months untangling the mess from a bunch of previous efforts, and even gotten a service award for my troubles. Money seemed to be flowing properly again.
What nobody but me knew was that I had found a tiny exploit in four different systems, something that must have been baked in from the very start, and never completed. What I had assumed was scrambled artifacts of a random update from the late 90s, by pure chance, seemed familiar — a bunch of commented code and notes that rung a bell. If I hadn’t coincidentally been clearing my head with a brain teaser website, I would never have caught it. But sure enough, decode the block and run it through a couple code lookups, and some bored genius had sketched out a brilliant way to steadily siphon money from the government, in such tiny amounts and from numerous sources, that it was virtually undetectable. All that was needed was the final step, which he seemed to never have finished. Maybe due to limitations of that era?
But with that clue, I was able to write a program to do what the other guy had started, and within four months I had a secret bank account set up in a dead man’s name, and two hundred and ten thousand bucks stashed away there. I dared not touch it directly.
And then I got scared, dismantled it all, and destroyed the evidence. I kept the account an built a routine to invest it — half in randomly chosen stuff, half in what I assumed would be stable stuff, and forgot about it for the most part. Once I’d had the automated stuff set up, I lost interest. Back to my soul crushing boredom.
Two things happened in short order one bright may morning.
First, I decided to check on the account, after a coworker mentioned he had made a tidy sum on some stock or other.
I had six million dollars in that account.
Second, I accidentally stumbled across a “news of the weird” article in my feed, and decided to distract myself from my panic by seeing how far from reality it was.
The claims of full body makeover were pretty extreme, and I was pretty dubious as I plowed through all the research... but sure enough, the two doctors cited had legit publications until about four years ago, and then disappeared from academics. The photos matched and other minor details corresponded to what I was able to dig up online.
Somehow, this team had left university life and a failed biotech company, and started something new — in a country so tiny and remote, i had to double check with my travel agent buddy to make sure it was real.
And then I started seeing and reading about people who’d been and gone through the treatment. While none of them showed signs of anything extreme, they did show remarkably changes, comparable to a dedicated fitness program and the best plastic surgery in the world.
For another month, I obsessed possibilities, until I finally made my decision. Then another two months laying groundwork for a lengthy absence, while slowly converting funds and setting things up overseas for a new identity.
Finally, through several layers of anonymity, I contacted the clinic and asked the questions that had been burning in my mind for weeks and weeks.
The answers gave me hope, and what’s more, they quickly passed me along to the head doctors, who seemed excited by the challenge. We reached an agreed fee and made the arrangements.
As far as work knew, I was taking a vacation to Hong Kong and Thailand, but I was only passing through Hong Kong, where I planned to disappear and travel the rest of the way under my assumed identity.
The weeks leading up to it were awful and tense, purely because of anticipation and second thoughts. But then I found myself on a plane with minimal luggage, most of which I would ditch long before I reached he clinic. It all went remarkably well, and suddenly there I was, alone in tiny island port, with sixty thousand dollars in cash and a backpack with my entire life in it.
“Mister Dennis?”
“Yes,”I replied.
“Please follow me.
